Adventures in sewing – by men, for men.

Another Shirt Complete (The Breakfast Club, Part 10)

I’ve acutally had this shirt complete for a few weeks now, but haven’t had an opportunity to take photos. So, here’s the second of the three short-sleeve shirts I made for my summer wardrobe: a blue checked plaid shirt. I love this shirt, I love the color and the way it turned out.

My photographer (ahem) didn’t tell me the back of the shirt was wrinkled to hell all from wearing it that day, but you can at least see the bias yoke and associated detail. McCall’s 6613 has a box pleat right at the center of the yoke.

Collar

I’m getting increasingly better with my collar work. I’ve found a way of doing the collar points that has been consistently working for me, producing sharper and more consistent points. My edgestitching is getting better.

Pocket and Front Bands

The front pocket and front bands turned out nicely. I routinely use the walking foot when stitching the front band to keep the band from twisting and distorting as I put in the lines of edgestitching. You’ll note that the front band doesn’t precisely line up with the shirt front in this photo (even more visible in the front profile above), but it’s close.

For the pocket, I’ve gone back to shaping the fabric around a cardboard template and pressing with an iron to shape the pocket before attachment. I’ve had mixed success using Janet Pray’s technique of holding a finger behind the presser foot to compress and ease the fabric around the curves. It works on the curves but doesn’t give me straight edges along top and bottom, which is important when you’re matching plaids.

Here’s the front band with the buttons. I had a problem getting the collar band to end up flush with the front band. I know what went wrong here. I got good results on the other side (see above photo) and my yellow shirt has come out nicely.

Yoke and Shoulders

Next Time

I’ll share some closeup photos of the work-in-progress yellow shirt, that just needs buttons and buttonholes to be called “finished”. And more talk about sewing machines.

Very nice shirt! The sewing looks very professionally done. My husband always said the shirts I used to make for him wore so much better than the rtw ones. I’m sure you will really enjoy wearing it a long while.

McCall’s 6613 is one of my favorite patterns :-) Did you attach the sleeves on the flat, or sew the sleeve and side seams then ease the sleeve? I’ve done it both ways with that pattern and don’t see any advantage to the more difficult circular easing and sewing.

I always attach the sleeves on the flat. I’m with you, I don’t understand the advantage of setting in the sleeve after the side seams are closed. I understand this is done with tailored garments such as suit jackets where the sleeve is larger than the armhole and makes a sleeve cap. But I don’t know why you would do it with a shirt.

McCall’s 6613 puts a tremendous amount of ease on the sleeve cap. I had to alter the sleeve piece to remove about 1.5 inches of excess ease before I could get it to match up nicely with the armhole (I covered this a few blog posts back). Otherwise, even with careful attention and the sleeve against the feed dogs, I would end up getting horrible puckers in the finished seam.